Social Media – sustainable engagement
I had the privilege to work on a Listening Project with Davines, the family-owned hair care company known for it’s unique balance of beauty and sustainability.
27 years in the making, from a small courtyard in Parma (Italy) they can now count on 60 countries’ and offices in Parma, New York, Paris, Mexico City and London.
Additional expansion projects are on the horizon for 2010 as Davines will work to inspire and attract a larger global community. Clearly Social Media was not something they could ignore, but, unlike their competitors, their approach was clever and thoughtful. I honestly dig that!
Initially Education was paramount! Just like their products are created in-house, in a sustainable and honest fashion, they understood that their SMM approach had to reflect the same pattern.
Rather than getting out-sourced consultants and agencies to do the work on their behalf like most lazy companies wrongly do, they took a different path. They started organising training sessions for their employees (30 hours training in 2 months). This is where I got involved and why I’m not just promoting a brand but telling a real story based on firsthand experience.
Just like Chucksblog wrote telling EMC journey into Social Media:
It’s all about Proficiency! “We had to help our employees become comfortable and proficient at all this social media stuff — not only the tools, but the skills, behaviors and attitudes that are oh-so-important“
After all, they will be the one taking it forward, and no external consultant will ever know “how to tell honest Davines’ stories” like they could.
The second phase was a Listening Project. I use to say “Let’s take a picture of what is going on online” then we can make informed decision on a strategy.
Listening: Who is talking about the brand, where, and what are they saying? Who is influential? Which Social Media tools are they using? And while we were at it… let’s have a look at what our competitors are doing and learn some good lessons.
This phase is now over, the findings have been shared among staff employees (not kept secret and solely accessible to Management) and all are participating and contributing to the decision making and next steps, according to the time and resources actually available. That’s an excellent way to engage! Slow but sustainable and steady progress.
Management kept regular informal meetings (Piadina party) whereby staff could share findings and discuss “what to do next“. According to their respective roles and responsibility each of them had a clear understanding of the tools available and their application for business purposes. I am fairly confident that each participant will make the most of Social Media; whether their angle is education, branding, PR Communication, event organizing, partner search, promotion, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogging or else.
By so doing Davines are “Using Social Media to change their internal cultures” just like Best Buy, GE and EMC did only few months ago(see Jeremiah Owyang article on that).
It’s common sense, and Davines proves that it is not an exclusive prerogative of a Major Corporation with a large budget.
It’s smart business, economically viable, sustainable, transparent and participatory. I dig that!
Forget paying Bloggers for “Product placement and good reviews“, forget paying for good traffic ranking, or SPAM intrusive advertising, forget “push” marketing that despise the values-pillars of Web 2.0.
Davines are gently knocking at Social Media’s door, learning the rules, and they will in time find their own audience through dialogues and participatory activities, emotional and experiencial, that reflect both own and Web 2.0 values.
I know what you are thinking, but let me tell you again that this is an honest story and an example to follow! First time in my career as a consultant that I learnt more than what I taught 
To conclude, here’s an amazing video that Best explain “Innovation, as a learning Process”
Innovation as a Learning Process from Roger Shealy on Vimeo (grazie a Stefano Principato per la segnalazione)
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